Hereby presenting a tutorial on the many functions and uses of paint and its mighty artistical prowess in the creation of mods for SWGB, AoK, and many other fine 2d comptuer games. This tutorial will walk you through the step by step creation of a Coruscant Guard.(see below)

As we established throughout chapter 1, the grid is your friend. Its like a little safety grid, and soon you will start feeling bad and frequently assuming the fetal position whilst away from your grid. As I wouldn't want this to hapen to any of you....often >}, we shall continue the grid action. We need some info first. Basically it goes like this.

First things first, we need to know how many frames each animation needs to be...

Quickly to the SLP listings! (HCD logo flys in then out in classic batman style)

We see that the second # is the # of frames in the total animation. And there are 5 different angles in each animation set, if you will. So with a little math (60/5=12) we know there are 12 frames in our attacking animation. Go ahead and figure this out for all of the animations.

In my case I have:

Attacking 12Dying 14Standing 10Decaying 5Walking 15

This is a lot more than your average trooper would have, in all respects.

Now we'll set up a new set of grids for each animation.

Part 2: The Animatrix

Except this one has less anime, so its much much better. Because anime is the downfall of the western world, along with hiphop/rap. Absolute rubbish. Anyway.

Ok. I'll just who you what the attacking grid should look like, thats an easy way to describe it.

Naturally the top frames of every animation will be your neutral frames. That's why we did them first. Now we just have to fill every frame of every grid with a unit . Now you're beginning to feel overwhelmed and the grid isn't doint it for you is it? Well pry yourself out of the fetal position I've got a way to remove some of the pain.

Seriously though, this is why paint is retarded. Cause there are 265 frames in the Mounted Trooper unit. Its 245 frames for a trooper recruit. And you'll drawing most of every frame by hand or moving pieces of your neutral frame around (that's why we did the seperate sections, so when the arms move we know what to draw his side like).

Make sense?

Now, just like the neutral frames we'll start with the Iso Toward frame. Mostly because its a beast and getting it out of the way is nice. But as you'll soon find with animating everything is a beast, and it never gets easy.

Part 3: Principls of animation.

You probably remember those little animated stick figures I drew (flashback ripples) that I then compiled as a gif to figure out the pose I wanted? This is highly useful in the animation stage. But if you're lacking the software/prowess to attempt somethign like that the next best thing is... well you. You get to be your own armature. Get in front of a big mirror, or set up a camera and tape yourself. Try out a bunch of actions that you have in mind for what the animation might look like, and try it from the approximate angles the unit will do. This will let you see how you move, which is really important.

Movement is a lot more subtle than you think. There is a whole lot to a walking animation, your hands sway opposite your strides to keep your balance, theres some bob when both your legs are fully extended, shoulder and hip twist... all of this needs to be considered to pull off a convincing animation. For troopers, think about how you'd start at your neutral frame pose and then pull your gun up fire and recover fromt he recoil. RECOIL. RECOIL! RECOIL I SAY! Guns bite back, make sure you put it in your animation, looks retarded if you don't, then people whine to me that I haven't improved the standard of modding... whine whine whine.

You really need to think about where your weight is at every point in the animation. Are you leaned forward with your weight on your left leg? That sort of thing, exaggerating weight helps animations a lot. Anticipation is also important, its the build up to an action. Like when you run, you don't just run. Theres the time when you rock back and coil up before you charge off. Make sure you think about that too.

Props dont hurt either. Even if its just a paper towel tube, it'll give you some sort of reference, toy guns are nice for guns, etc.

Well, now that you've danced around in your underwear with paper towel tubes and toy guns in front of the mirror/camera for a while you've got a pretty good idea of how to get started.

Sorry about that underwear bit, I just assumed at least one of you is incapable of dressing yourself.

Moving duely onward.

Part 4: Time to draw!

Quick grab your armature/video/mirror and start drawing that Iso Toward frame. We've already talked about how to draw the other frames based on this one, once you get all the Iso Towards done, just draw out your reference lines and do the other angles. I'll post updates as my progress continues. Good luck and keep working .

Hey dude, Im getting a link for chapter one with broken pics, can u either e-mail it to me or host the word document on a site so i can download it?

I'd apreciate it.

" Well, I'll go back in time and prevent Ledger from ODing. If the movie is still as acclaimed, then I'll go back again, stop myself from stopping him, and let time proceed normally." - Moff Yittreas "Map design is what you do in the scn editor, eye candy is the stuff I'm not allowed to link to on these forums." - The Legend"Someone has to play the asshole in these type of threads." - Blackmoon

+1 Post Count

BrownbootClone Trooper

posted
06-04-06 07:12 AM
EDT (US)
378 / 393

I'll reupload the photos in a couple days. Just got home from college and had everything down because of a server swap...

" Well, I'll go back in time and prevent Ledger from ODing. If the movie is still as acclaimed, then I'll go back again, stop myself from stopping him, and let time proceed normally." - Moff Yittreas "Map design is what you do in the scn editor, eye candy is the stuff I'm not allowed to link to on these forums." - The Legend"Someone has to play the asshole in these type of threads." - Blackmoon

+1 Post Count

Shock TrooperClone Trooper

posted
06-20-06 10:05 PM
EDT (US)
380 / 393

I really want the chapter one pdf, but it not there. There's a 404 file not found page.

No, those are the aquilish, they normally have hooves, but some have hands (two types of them) those are the ones who make it off planet like the one you see in the cantina, they are well known for their bad moods. The Bith are the musicians you see in the cantina, they have extremly large craniums making them capable of being extremely intelligent, they are also very receptive to noise sometimes they can even pick up radio waves and whatnot, which is why you see alot as musicians.

HEADOFDEFENSEFURRYRODIAN:State of Scarlet:Projects:Movie-Battles:" Intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us." - War of the Worlds

The BatmanClone Trooper

posted
08-25-06 10:21 AM
EDT (US)
384 / 393

Are you ever going to fix that link Brownie?

" Well, I'll go back in time and prevent Ledger from ODing. If the movie is still as acclaimed, then I'll go back again, stop myself from stopping him, and let time proceed normally." - Moff Yittreas "Map design is what you do in the scn editor, eye candy is the stuff I'm not allowed to link to on these forums." - The Legend"Someone has to play the asshole in these type of threads." - Blackmoon

+1 Post Count

CadreClone Trooper

posted
08-25-06 12:34 PM
EDT (US)
385 / 393

Quote:

No, those are the aquilish, they normally have hooves, but some have hands (two types of them) those are the ones who make it off planet like the one you see in the cantina, they are well known for their bad moods. The Bith are the musicians you see in the cantina, they have extremly large craniums making them capable of being extremely intelligent, they are also very receptive to noise sometimes they can even pick up radio waves and whatnot, which is why you see alot as musicians.

" Well, I'll go back in time and prevent Ledger from ODing. If the movie is still as acclaimed, then I'll go back again, stop myself from stopping him, and let time proceed normally." - Moff Yittreas "Map design is what you do in the scn editor, eye candy is the stuff I'm not allowed to link to on these forums." - The Legend"Someone has to play the asshole in these type of threads." - Blackmoon

+1 Post Count

SaforClone Trooper

posted
01-30-08 09:58 AM
EDT (US)
389 / 393

Thet was GREAT! Can you put Ch. 2 in PDF?? Thanks!

Watch Clone Wars Ep. 9.You will see more pwnage than you would in a 3 hour game.

wellstClone Trooper

posted
07-19-08 05:32 AM
EDT (US)
390 / 393

I've only ever used paint and Slowview to do my mods, I just find them easier to use. Plus they're in the SWGB Palette which stops all those little masking problems.